Road America 2005 Pics!!

[Shuasha]

I have a few pics on me, I took a ton more on Matt's (Machan's) camera and I'm sure he'll upload them tonight or tomorrow.

Here's the worst thing that happened while I was there for the weekend, I guess he messed up on the Carousel and bounced off the wall twice.


Here's some damned Japanese car...


My favorite, this guy actually drives his M1 on the track!

[thillIX]

I wonder who's Elise that is in the first picture....

[C ///M]

Wow, tough break for the elise owner. Live and learn, hopefully he's doing just fine.

Wish I could have made this. I'll try and start getting active in windy city events this summer.

Care to give your thoughts/feelings/opinions of the event? More pictures is definitely a plus, but let's hear some details.

[Shuasha]

Originally Posted by C ///M

Wow, tough break for the elise owner. Live and learn, hopefully he's doing just fine.

Wish I could have made this. I'll try and start getting active in windy city events this summer.

Care to give your thoughts/feelings/opinions of the event? More pictures is definitely a plus, but let's hear some details.

I wasn't driving, I dropped out at the last minute because my car wasn't ready. It seemed to be very well run, there were only a few minor incidents. Road America is big enough that they could have around 40 cars on the track at time. Windy City always has good instructors too. I guess they hired a professional driver that won a some races at RA to teach the experienced drivers.

[.:Rod]

woah.... sad to see... hopefully okay....

[Hi Sean]

Yeah, that Elise is a sorry site. Jim called me over the weekend with a pic of it via pic mail, but unfortunately, i couldn't get it. He also left a voicemail saying it "spun out", and it was depressing, so i figured the outcome wasn't good.

[Dave]

I got a bunch more pics of the Elise on the wrecker but I'm not going to post them.

The whole accident was caught on film by the track's camera system and here is the version of what happened straight from the class instructor who watched the video first hand.

The driver went through the carousel at a good rate of speed (I bumped into the instructor who was in the car at the time and he said about 120 MPH). As the driver came out of the carousel he got two wheels into the dirt at the exit. He lifted which caused the car to snap into a spin. The car spun back across towards the opposite side of the track and hit a concrete wall. The car went airbourne and while in the air it smacked the wall a second time. The car landed and the accident was over.

However what happened after the accident was just as bad. There was some controversey (if that's even an appropriate word) over how the corner workers flagged the incident. The incident happened after the checkered flag came out to signal the end of the session. This perhaps added to the flag confusion. One of the drivers on the track at the time stopped in the middle of the track at the exit of the carousel even though there was no red flag. I'm not sure why the driver stopped on the track however I believe it was the class instructor who stated that the driver said that a cornerworker told him to stop.

Driver and instructor are okay.

It was very sad to see the car on the wrecker go through the paddock. Pretty much everyone was heart broken.
That's all I know of the event.

[Dave]

Okay, now to good news.

I also have a bunch of pics and some videos on my digital camera that I'll be sorting through.

Awesome event!

[+S54 Fan+]

Damn, that sucks about the Elise. I wonder if he's looking for a body shop . Ramsen is gonna get all sad when he see's that.

[mck]

Road America ROCKS!

I have a ton of photos of that elise that I will be posting tomorrow when I can get them off the camera. I have heard two stories - the one Dave summarized above, and the one my Saturday morning instructor, who was the passenger in the Elise at the time, told me - that the driver saw he was about to drop two wheels off at the track out, so he lifted and pinched the wheel. Either way, wrong reaction and a hell of an expensive lesson. 1,300 miles on that car when it hit the wall.

Ramsen, you will be HAPPY to hear that both passenger and driver walked away from the accident. They were limping - passenger's right leg got thrown into an aluminum trim piece in the wheel well and bruised the bone, swelled up to the size of a fist, driver bruised his legs and arm pretty good - but they walked away and did not need hospital attention. They were not turning down the Vicodin though.


A lot of cars off this weekend, 4 went into the wall. One 911 turbo went off in the rain/snow, not attributed to driver error, and took out the drivers side rear corner. Mixed reports on whether the engine was damaged - I'm going to say it was, since it went home on a flatbed. One 2002 lost its brakes, and somebody in the highest expert class glanced a tire wall in the first session of the weekend.


Photos tomorrow!

[mck]

Originally Posted by Dave

However what happened after the accident was just as bad. There was some controversey (if that's even an appropriate word) over how the corner workers flagged the incident. The incident happened after the checkered flag came out to signal the end of the session. This perhaps added to the flag confusion. One of the drivers on the track at the time stopped in the middle of the track at the exit of the carousel even though there was no red flag. I'm not sure why the driver stopped on the track however I believe it was the class instructor who stated that the driver said that a cornerworker told him to stop.

Oh yeah, to clarify for people not familiar with the track or the flags -- the carousel is at turn 9 of a 14 turn track. The checkered flag is thrown at turn 14 and the straight leading into turn 1, and the cars then exit at turn 5 and go back to the pits.

The Elise was at the very back of the pack, and hadn't seen the checkered yet - he was still running a hot lap. All of the cars ahead of him would see the checkered in another 4 corners and exit the track. The corner workers and RA track officials decided that because nearly every car had gone through already and would be exited the track before coming on the accident site, there was no need to throw a red flag and bring everyone to an immediate stop on the track. They instead waved a yellow flag, which means there's a potentially serious problem up ahead and be very cautious. They said that if the checkered had not already been thrown or if the elise was further ahead in the pack, it would have been a red flag.

The real problems were with our drivers -- the one guy stopped on the track, at two others claimed not to see the stopped car, waving yellow, or accident "until they were on top of it." This is a huge problem - the carousel has the furthest lookahead view on the entire track. You can see the accident site from probably 200 yards away, if not more, and the corner worker is visible almost as soon as you enter the carousel. Really bad considering this group was supposed to be the most experienced drivers out there.

[Red Alert]

Wow that sucks a lot. I'm glad everything was ok with the driver and passenger though. And thanks for all you guys for actually caring about how I would feel when I saw the pic. There are so few Elises around that it's pretty personal when anything like this happens. Remind me never to go to Road America.

[C ///M]

Originally Posted by Red Alert

Remind me never to go to Road America.

Don't say that. Go with an instructor and take it easy, don't drive beyond your abilities. Yea, accidents happen, but stay focused, listen to your instructor, and you'll be fine. Road America is so enjoyable. I can't wait to get with an instructor on that track. Only time I got to drive it was at a Touring session. We got 45 minutes, but there were ~70 cars out.

Can't wait to see more pics of the event. Wish I could have been there. Won't make Windy City's Driving School at the end of June either because it's the same weekend as my brother's wedding...figures... Looks like I'll probably be doing some of Jonathon's DE's anyway.

[mck]

Originally Posted by Red Alert

Wow that sucks a lot. I'm glad everything was ok with the driver and passenger though. And thanks for all you guys for actually caring about how I would feel when I saw the pic. There are so few Elises around that it's pretty personal when anything like this happens. Remind me never to go to Road America.

Yeah, Chris is right. The real lesson is don't do anything stupid to suddenly upset the car's balance when you're at the limits of adhesion. Doesn't matter if you're at Road America, Gingerman, Autobahn, or on Lake Shore Drive. Shit happens, but this was avoidable.

[Matt]

I also had a great time. It was my first time and I was in the novice run group.

We had everything from 2002s to ///M5s plus some Evos and STis. I had a great instuctor and I really enjoyed running in the rain and sleet. My instructor had me on the dry line which gets really slippery in the rain so that I could focus on being really smooth.

I had a blast and drove faster than I've ever driven in my life. I was able to get up to about 122 mph on the front straight before breaking into turn 1 and I was able to match that before breaking into turn 5. My car was phenomenal at speed and had tons of grip. The low torque thing was an issue though which required some downshifting. Since I can't heel and toe yet, it made it a little tough to hit everything consistently but I'll continue working on it.

As far as the elise, 120 mph in the carousel . I was exiting at about 80 mph in that same spot .

Turn 13A is the bomb, I was nailing that almost everytime on both days. It's a blind apex turn under the bridge after the Canada corner.

Things for me were a little dicey one time on turn 5 in the rain. I gave it a little too much gas and the car went sideways and then I applied some brakes which was bad (the last thing to do in that situation) but I let off the brakes right away and the oversteer just took me inside the curve a bit but I stayed on the track didn't stall it and quickly motored away. The WRX behind me saw everything and said he was impressed with the recovery. Fortunately, he wasn't too close and actually nearly drifted off the outside edge of the track so he actually never even passed me.